Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
⁉️ Even the HUR and SBU already notice it, but top officials still don’t: could this really be a case of double standards by the Language Ombudsperson?
The Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, Olena Ivanovska, decided to go after the HUR of the Ministry of Defense and the SBU. The reason was that during an armed incident in Kyiv in Bereznyaky, special service officers were speaking a non-state language in the heat of the conflict. The language ombudsperson did not just send inquiries; she officially demands that the leadership of the special services provide explanations and “identifying information” about their employees so she can apply legal measures against them.
I should remind you that earlier I sent an official request to the Secretariat of the Language Ombudsperson. The goal was clear and straightforward: to find out whether the Commissioner applies any measures of response, fines, or administrative protocols to high-ranking officials whose Russian-language conversations while performing state functions were published by NABU as part of the high-profile operations “Midas,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Themis.” This concerns working meetings, official communications, and decisions about the fate of state assets involving former Deputy Head of the Office of the President Iryna Mudra, former heads of the Office of the President, government officials, and leaders of state giants (“Energoatom,” “SENS BANK”).
The reply signed by the head of the Secretariat, Yurii Zubko, turned out to be a classic bureaucratic form letter and effectively a legal defense for the powerful. The Commissioner and her staff reported that no complaints about these people had been received, that they do not keep a separate registry for officials, and that all information was traditionally masked and covered up by “personal data protection.” In other words, when it comes to officials from the offices on Bankova Street or in the Cabinet, the state system switches to a “not my concern” mode and pretends not to see anything.
Meanwhile, the punitive apparatus works like clockwork against ordinary citizens and servicemen. The Ombudsperson’s Secretariat regularly reminds people that parents and educators face heavy fines for Russian-language remarks in school parent chats. Passengers are held accountable for phrases spoken on transport in the half-ruined city of Kherson, which is shelled daily. A mother is fined because her underage child posted a TikTok video with Russian-language audio. And now the Ombudsperson’s Office has decided to hold fighters from the HUR and SBU liable or fine them as well…
This is sheer cynicism and the absurdity of a distorted system. To fine a mother for a school chat, to hold a Kherson minibus passenger or a serviceman accountable: the language ombudsperson has the resources, the resolve, and the political will…
But when NABU-documented facts are before their eyes, where top officials and figures like Mindich or Mudra speak Russian, including while governing the state, the authorized bodies suddenly become completely blind and powerless.
Sorry, I’ll repeat: this is the degradation of the country’s governance system, where the law has been turned into a whip for ordinary people and a reliable shield for corrupt officials.